Virtual Reality: The Potentials and The
Pitfalls

2006-08-02: As written by an impressionable youth of 18 years.
Now that I'm older and more knowledgable I am amazed I believed this,
especially the business about the Upper Paleolithic. I also suspect
that the raw amount of data required for virtual reality will exceed
our ability to create it for some time, even once we've got the
hardware to process it.

04 06 92

Imagine you're walking through a house--a fire
crackles in the brick fireplace, an ebony
grand piano plays in the living room, and
glasses clink around the wooden dining room
table. The images you see and the sounds you
hear are quite lifelike, yet you are not
actually in this house at all. (1)

This is virtual reality--experiencing things that may or may
not be real, seeing the invisible, and making the abstract
concrete(to the senses)--and it has the power to change the way we
live, for better, or for worse. The proof is in the phycological
considerations necessary for, and effects created by virtual
reality. These consideration and effects include our(mankind's)
perceptions of reality, recording and transferring large amounts of
information(for future generations), and our most highly developed
senses and abilities.

The fact that virtual reality can make something which is not
real look real will change our perception of reality. It will be
possible to make the world exactly the way we want it(virtually, of
course). This aspect of virtual reality is what makes it so
promising, and so frightening. As it is,

The technology exists today to intercept an analog
video signal and its sound track, digitize them, edit
them in real time, and send them back into the analog
world with so little delay that no one is the wiser.
Real-time, on-line image and soundtrack crunching is now
possible.

Seeing is no longer believing, and no videotape or
photograph can be considered evidence of the truth. (2)

Along with the pitfall of possible abuse, however, comes a great
potential to change the way we deal with scientific problems. If
seeing and manipulating molecules as if they were the size of
stones becomes perceived as reality, scientists will be able to
solve problems in totally new, and easier ways. The fact is that,
&guot;The choices you make as you are creating an application[solving a
problem] are directly controlled by the environment you work in." (3)
The environment you work in, and use to share information with
others also affects how easy it is for them to understand what you
did, because it affects your perception of reality.

Transferring information by use of virtual reality, and
changing perceptions of reality, as we know it, is not a new idea.
In fact, there seems to be evidence that tribesmen in the Upper
Palaeolithic probably used this technique, as shown by the
following discussion of cave paintings, many which were painted on
protuberances to give a three dimensional effect when viewed in the
right light (4),

The collective knowledge of the band society was on
the rise, demanding far more powerful systems of record-keeping--and there was no writing...

One way of preparing people for imprinting has been
known for a long time by tribes everywhere, modern as
well as prehistoric: bring them into unfamiliar, alien,
and unpleasant places, part of the procedure known in
modern times as brainwashing...

Considering the technologies available at the time,
the people of the Upper Palaeolithic seem to have made
use of every trick in the book, piling special effect
upon special effect in an effort to ensure the preservation and transmission of the tribal encyclopedia. (5)

Considering that we have a similar situation (except that we have
writing), it seems logical that virtual reality would show up now
to help us pass on information.

Virtual reality is so effective imparting such large amounts
of information in a short time, and at changing our perception of
reality is that it uses Man's most highly developed abilities and
senses. There are three areas in which human minds are superior to
computers, and likely will remain so. Pattern recognition--which
can be enhanced by using the computer to show patterns in ways in
which we can not normally perceive them, evaluations, and a "sense
of context that enables us to recall, at the appropriate moment,
something that was read in an obscure journal twenty years
previously, in reference to a completely different subject, that we
suddenly see to be meaningful" (6) are these three areas. On the
other hand, the computer is much better at doing repetitive tasks
or calculations and at storing large amounts of data without
forgetting.

Man also has many senses which have been highly developed.
These include seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting. Of
these seeing, hearing, and feeling are the most highly developed(and use the most space in the brain). Seeing is already
commonly used to transmit information with computer displays, and
their[the display's] realism will be improved when they become
three dimensional. Hearing is less use but there are many devices
to add speech synthesis and music to computer which are readily
available, and it appears that it is already fairly realistic(compared to three dimensional sight), because there is less
information in sound than sight. And the "haptic" system (which
includes tactile sense, and proprioception--the body's ability to
know the position of our own limbs in relation to one another and
to the space around us) is now being conquered and in fact "Sensing
the size and the direction of forces allows them[chemists] to work
more efficiently[at joining molecules]." (7)

Imparting information is important, but virtual reality is
more than just a passive display device. It is also a tool that
allows the computer to respond to our natural abilities. In the
case of vision, virtual reality systems change in response to head
and eye movement. New technologies such as glove that can sense
hand movements and gestures allow new methods of entering information into the computer. For example an in the case of an air
traffic controller: "To talk to a particular pilot, he'd reach
over and touch the plane with his glove, and radio contact would be
established instantly." (8) The potential of fully being in a virtual
world, allows for exciting new ways of dealing with information,
and solving problems(especially mathematical, and scientific ones).

In conclusion it could be said that virtual reality is not
only a better way to solve problems, by involving all the senses,
but a way to tailor what seems to us to be reality to our whims.
The experience of virtual reality which allows this will change our
lives, and our thinking patterns. All we can do is hope that it is
for the better.

This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.